having a good laugh over the way they had fooled the dog. And Tommy
had quite forgotten how frightened he had been. In fact, he began to
feel very well pleased with himself. For he never once remembered that
it was his mother, and not himself, who had thought of that trick. He
ought to have felt very grateful to his grandmother, for having taught
his mother that clever way of cheating a dog out of his dinner. But
Tommy Fox was so conceited that if his grandmother had been there with
them he would have thought he knew ten times as much as she did. I've
no doubt that he would even have tried to teach her to suck eggs--
never once stopping to think that she knew all about such things many
years before he was born.




XX

THE DRUMMER OF THE WOODS


Tommy Fox stopped short and listened. It was early spring, and the
snow was still deep on the sides of Blue Mountain.

_Thump--thump--thump, thump, thump, thump! Rub--rub--rub--rub, r-r-r-
r-r-r-r!_ If you had heard that sound you would have said that there
was a boy hidden somewhere on the mountain; and that he was playing a
drum. But Tommy Fox knew better than that. He knew that it was Mr.
Grouse, calling to Mrs. Grouse. And Tommy knew that he made that noise
by beating the air with his strong wings.